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An action can be good and please one person, yet harm no others; or an action can be good and displease many, because it incurs shortterm suffering (and that can be a week, or a hundred years)

ok...but remember I didn't say 'please', I said 'bring happiness to'. Isn't it true that the type of acton you are talking about, which are good despite pleasing noone, are good because they bring happiness to a great many people in the long term. They may bring happiness to people who are not even alive yet, or they may bring happiness to people of whom those displeased have no knowledge. I think that in this way your point agrees with mine, but if you believe that an action can be good even though it 'displeases' some people and doesn't bring any hapiness to anyone(alive or not/present or future), please tell me so.

An action can serve the immediate good for a large group of people, yet have a disastrous effect overall.

yes quite so. This is exactly my point as well. The action you describe is bad because it brings greater unhapiness in the long run than it does happiness.

I think, the question of perception, and attaching a greater weight to numbers of people pleased, without establishing any significance for that weighting.

right, perhaps this is a problem in my wording. I will assume that you agree that one person can be happier than another, and so too could be said to possess more happiness.
Now when I say the greatest happiness for the greatest number, I mean that granting two people x happiness each would be just as good as granting one person 2x happiness, so granting 50 people x happiness and 49 people x unhappiness each would also be a 'good' action.

Now I know that you will not accept that happiness can be measured in 'x's, and of coursed I do not believe this myself. I do say however that one can tell (with sufficient wisdom) wether doing a simple thing (buying flowers for your wife, say) will bring happiness or unhappiness. That is why the best and wisest people do things which very rarely bring unhappiness to anyone at all, because trying to speculate as to the balance of happiness and unhappiness is absolutely impossible.

an example worth bringing up is Chairman Mao's dictatorship, which is one of the cases in which happiness and unhappiness is very very finely balanced. I say that although chairman mao's acts brought great unhappiness to a great many people, they may yet prove to bring greater happiness than unhappiness in the future (ie the Chinese would all be very unhappy if they were still ruled by a feudal system).
This agrees with what you said earlier, that something can be bad even if it brings immediate pleasure to a great number (so something can be good even if it brings immediate displeasure to a great number).

I think we are in agreement here, but if not, tell me how.

@Frogus, I think we're getting a little far afield, here. I honestly don't know where you want to go with this "happiness" theory, but I don't agree that happiness can be quantified, or that it can be legislated, or that it's even possible to establish a happiness factor. I don't think any one form of government makes for more happiness than the next. Happiness is a matter of individual appreciation, and I think the more people are aimed at by a "happiness-provider," the less chance there is of success. Make of that what you will.

How does this fit in with your theory of dealing with criminals after they've committed crimes?

I don't think any one form of government makes for more happiness than the next.

In that is truly the case then I don't know if we can get anywhere. Also, if that really is the case then surely you don't care wether criminals are rehabilitated, locked up, killed or whatever-it will not make for more happiness than anything else, apparently.

How does this fit in with your theory of dealing with criminals after they've committed crimes?

I was getting there, slowly, but if above statement of yours is true then I will not be able to.

In that is truly the case then I don't know if we can get anywhere. Also, if that really is the case then surely you don't care wether criminals are rehabilitated, locked up, killed or whatever-it will not make for more happiness than anything else, apparently.

How do you perceive my accepting this? Methods of dealing with criminal activities, either proactive or after-the-fact, have only the most tangential of relationships with "happiness," and everything to do with security. And security isn't a matter of achieving happiness; it's a matter of avoiding injury or death.

I put it to you that security is one part of happiness, just like honesty is one part of virtousness.
One cannot be happy if one is in danger of being injured or killed.

Originally posted by frogus
I put it to you that security is one part of happiness, just like honesty is one part of virtousness.
One cannot be happy if one is in danger of being injured or killed.

If it comes down to it, we can reduce everything in life to things that make us happy or unhappy, or any other dichotomy, but with respect I don't think that serves any purpose in the current discussion. And if we don't do this, I fail to see any link between security and happiness.

sorry, dunno what a dichtomy(?) is.....

but I certainly believe that we can classify all things in life under the headings 'things which make me happy' and 'things which don't'. I don't believe that this 'reduces' anything.

anyway the way I am heading is still trying to show you that what I said about the greatest happiness for the greatest number was right.

You have a complaint about

I put it to you that security is one part of happiness, just like honesty is one part of virtousness.

but I don't quite understand what it is.?

please bare with me. It's damned difficult arguing with someone whose opinions are different to yours.